Faulty
by ACtravels
Summary: One minute Lavender Brown was okay. And then, suddenly, she wasn't.
1. Seven Cups

**Title:** Faulty

**Summary:** One minute Lavender Brown was okay. And then, suddenly, she wasn't.

**Warnings:** Sensitive issues (mental illness), some bad language... mostly the mental health thing.

* * *

The first time Parvati realised something was wrong was a fortnight after she'd moved out.

She hadn't wanted to move out, really, but needs must – Lavender had understood and Padma had needed her. After seven years of only really seeing her twin in the holidays, of putting Lavender first, it was her duty to pick up the pieces of her sister when she fell apart.

They were all busy. The world was busy recuperating, fixing things, weeding out all the last remnants of the dark that lingered over the whole wizarding world. The smoke was clearing and they were all busy fumigating. She'd written Lavender a few brief letters to receive nothing in reply, but she hadn't been worried – her best friend had a new job, was likely _slightly_ irritated about having to search for a new flatmate so soon and was never much good with letters anyway. So, Parvati had decided that it was time to visit.

She'd let herself in with her old key and found the cups: a stark row of them, lined up like soldiers on the kitchen table, all clogged up with the dregs of tea leaves. The cups had been an extravagant purchase made the day Parvati had breached the conversation about moving out – fine china, curling flowers in precise delicate patterns which had that perfect nostalgic feel clinging to them. Perfect for reading tea leaves. Lavender's favourite divination book was open, the crisp, well-thumbed pages exposed to the kitchen. Lavender knew enough about reading tea leaves to render the book unnecessary, but it was habit to retrieve and open the book. Then there was her notebook, too, pink and patterned and closed with a page folded over which marked the point at which she'd last been writing.

it had only been a couple of weeks ago when they'd done this together, laughing and sipping tea as they predicted mad, bright futures. It was a comfort. It reminded them both of Hogwarts. Just one of the simple, easy pleasures that they had left.

At first, the number of cups didn't bother her. Lavender probably got carried away with some train of the future, pouring cups of tea and drinking cups of tea to convince herself of some _handsome stranger _or confirm some symbol in her cup.

Parvati smiled to herself as she refilled the teapot with a wave of her wand and pulled out the single cup still in the cupboard. She sipped her tea quickly, drained the glass, sat down on the familiar seat and began to twist it in her hands. Her own cup made her smile: the symbol for the tightening of bonds, of family relationships, the phoenix – a whole new life rising up out of the ashes of a war. It was what they were all dreaming of, hoping for, what was beginning to happen. The promise of a whole future just beyond the current.

It was curiosity that sparked Parvati to take a glance at Lavender's cups. Lavender would have chastised her for it, for looking at her future, but Parvati wanted to know what possible could have provoked lavender into drinking so many cups of tea (Lavender barely liked tea, unless she was reading tea leaves).

She felt her heart stop in her chest for a second as she picked up the first cup and saw a grim staring back at her. For a second there was something icy lodged in her throat, then she remembered how to breathe and let out a shaky breath. She picked up the second cup with her hand shaking slightly. Another grim. And then the third, the forth, the fifth; all identical.

It was a nightmare. Impossible. Some horrible omen of death sent to cast a shadow on their whole future. It was the sixth cup when she noticed something worse: she had it held right up to her nose, staring at the black lumpy creature feeling sick, when she noticed the marks on the bottom of the cup – residue from tea leaves, tea stains, as though someone had used a fingernail to brush the tea leaves into shape. Trelawney had told them about this, about how to recognise when someone had corrupted the predictions, then Parvati picked up each of the cups in turn and searched for the evidence that these were corrupted predictions, tea leaves forced into these unfathomable, dark shapes.

Ten minutes later she was able to think again. She picked up Lavender's notebook with her slender hands and prized open the pages. _Prediction: hope. Wrong. Faulty. _And then, worse, _I predicted my death again today._

Over and over, the same words in Lavender's, neat, curly handwriting.

Parvati Patil jerked out of the horrible images growing in her mind, cleaned the cups with a flick of her wand and closed her eyes. She needed to find Lavender. She needed to find Lavender and make sure she was okay. And she needed to do it _now_.


	2. Dim Lighting

The lights never go out. They burn, constantly, dimly in their brackets so that the room always seems to glow slightly in the way that magical fire always glows: Practicality, she assumes, because sometimes the Healers rush into the ward in the middle of the night to tend to some human disaster; or else, the rounds every few hours, to ensure that everyone is still breathing and alive. Sometimes, she supposes, they are almost on suicide watch rather than in a ward for serious bites, but she is assured that all the wards are like this – it reflects the times, Healer Pye said, because they have all been wounded in the middle of a bloody, bitter battle.

He talks psychology to her, because she asked him and because he is a newly qualified Healer who still believes in talking to his patients, and so she received more information than perhaps she had wanted. That sometimes, when a war is over, there are people who feel like their strings have been cut loose and that nothing ties them down anymore. That all the passion and energy that gave them the ability to fight to the death can turn inwards and destroy a person.

They'd won. She'd been unconscious at the time. Sprawled out on the grass; bloody, bleeding out, weak and desperate.

It is never silent either. She lies awake at night, insomnia clinging to her brain irritably (because if she could sleep then there would be no lingering effects), and can hear the rhythmic breathing of half a dozen people, wounded like her, inhaling and exhaling. She finds it reassuring and listens to it for hours, until the sun rises and she pretends that she has been asleep, it has become a lullaby of life – a reminder that they are all still alive, that they survived this, that she can still breathe.

She'd thought she was dying. With his teeth sinking into her flesh; leant over her, lips moving over her skin like a whisper, until his teeth broke through and _tore her apart. _Thought she was dead.

The dizzy, confused mix of pain that had greeted her when she was pulled out of her unconsciousness has ebbed away now.

_Your wounds are healing well, Lavender Brown._

The scarring is permanent, but that is little payment to live. Some were caused by curses and spells, others by him; they crisscross across her neck, arm, creeping onto her face. The Healers have done well, because each was once a gaping, spacious wound, and now it merely looks as though her skin had disintegrated and been forced back together again. She is a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing, but a stubborn child has shoved the pieces back together anyway – not quite fitting together neatly and succinctly, but nevertheless complete.

"Hey, Lavender," Parvati says, smiling as she takes a seat on one of the chairs next to her bed, "the Healer said it's good news."

Her best friend remains the same as always: a constant throughout the years of Hogwarts, unharmed and still as pretty as ever. It hurts, actually, to see the crisp beautiful lines of her face still curving into a gentle smile of purposefully enforced hope and optimism. Lavender refuses to let herself resent it – Parvati is her best friend, always, permanently. Eternity.

_Good news._

Visitor's hours aren't imposed as strictly as they used to be, Pye told her, because there are so many loved ones suffering and hurting and dying. The Healers have their work cut out, because any single person might have been hit with a dozen curses, been infected by some dangerous plant, been bitten by one of Hagrid's giant spiders – some of the dark magic, the darkest, might not be apparent straight away. Patients could die before their families have been able to celebrate the fact that they all made it through with their hearts still thudding in their chests.

As a result, Lavender's friends from Hogwarts haunt the seats beside her bed. They have been her eyes and ears. She is one of the many riding out the dawning of this new age on a concoction of medicinal potions – in terms of experience, she is definitely not alone. She is too unwell to attend the funerals, so Parvati relays them too her the subsequent day – Lavender hears of who made the speeches, where they were buried, who cried, who had the nicest black robes. It is a bitter, solemn tradition, but Pye said that funerals bring resolution and closure.

"I looked round the flat again today," Parvati says, her eyes twinkling slightly with excitement, "I've cleared out your room, so it's ready for you to move in."

_Are you ready to leave? _

They poured over the estate agent's brochures together a few days after Lavender had regained the ability to sit up: searching for a two bed flat in a somewhat magical dwelling, with a manageable rent where they could live together. The giddy excitement about something so grown up still hums in Lavender's veins every time she thinks of it (which she does, often), because she can think of nothing so lovely as to live with her best friend.

_(Pye says that, all too often, war victims move out on their own – with no one to ground them and with nothing to ensure that they're okay, their mental state disintegrates rapidly: Lavender will not let that happen to herself.) _

Parvati gushes about the flat, her new job and idle gossip in turn, filling up the empty space of silence between them with a sea of chatter and giggling: at the moment, Parvati doesn't expect her to talk that much. Not because Parvati thinks that there is anything wrong with her chatty friend, but that after a month in a ward in St Mungo's, there is little else to say.

"Smethwyck says you'll be discharged by the end of the week." Parvati says when it is time for her to go, to hurry back to her new job and her life that exists outside the four walls of this room: Lavender is not jealous, in fact quite the opposite, she has learnt to feel safe within this space and the idea of her world expanding again into the realms of the unknown sends a shiver of something like fear down her spine. Excitement, too, but Lavender cannot deny that she is also scared.

"My parents are coming to pick me up," Lavender says with a smile, "see you at the flat."

Pye stops Parvati before she has exited the ward, striking up conversation about something or other which Lavender can't hear.

Lavender has procured a job at Glad Rags. She is very nearly over qualified, but she cannot face returning to Hogwarts and continuing her education as though nothing ever happened: she discussed it with Smethwyck, Pye, her parents and Parvati and it was decided that it was for the best. She could finish her NEWTs another time, perhaps, but an occupation that would allow her to broach the idea of self-sufficiency would help her rebuild her life.

And so, she has her whole life planned out and mapped out. This is just a temporary blip on her plan, nothing to worry about exactly, because she has a job and a place to live and her friends. She absorbed Pye's talk of psychology, construed his dialogue as a warning against letting herself be defined by a war that she fought in, once upon a time, and so she will not let it affect her life.

In one week she will leave St Mungo's, after all this time, and emerge into a world where Voldemort no longer lingers in the darkest corners of her mind: a bad dream, a threat, and a possible future of death.

There is a compulsory check up with a councillor, for post-traumatic stress and adjustment to real life, but no one will notice when she doesn't turn up: for Lavender Brown is a perfect recovery case, with her bright plan, her optimism and the solid presence of her smile.

_Then again, no one knows about the insomnia. _

* * *

_Hello there! This is the bit where I ramble on for a bit, so do feel free to ignore if you want. I'm currently in the middle of writing, what is it now - eight? - HP fanfiction novels (most of which are posted on a different site) and am therefore banned from starting anymore stories. They're all sitting in a 2/3 done type capacity and I guess... well, I like writing new stories. So, this is the first time I'm writing something that's going up on this site first and it feels quite strange for me, but as a result this is subject to a lot of editing and messing about because I'm planning quite a swift journey from OH LOOK ITS THREE IN THE MORNING AND I'VE GOT A GREAT IDEA to completion (I sort of want to have finished writing this by the end of the week, but that's a bit ambitious). So, to condense what I'm trying to say into a fewer words, the chronology of things at the moment is likely going to change and any constructive __criticism_/advice/thoughts would really be appreciated. There now, I'll stop talking.

Thanks for reading.


	3. New

They've taken a flat in the magical quarter of York; it is not the cheapest area, but for some reason Lavender was drawn to the little image in the catalogue – it seemed to possess that same magical quality that leaks from the walls in Hogwarts, and sold her a concept of an idyllic future. The tiny photograph has been flattering, just as Lavender expected (as silly as she can be, she is not so disillusioned from reality to expect such embellishments), but Parvati has described the feel of the place to her a multitude of times and it is exactly how she always wished it to be.

She walks around the fringes of the flat feeling oddly free and disconnected from reality: for several months she has been confined in St Mungo's. Although, in those final weeks, she was permitted to take walks around the hospital and explore – never had someone so often frequented that little tea shop – she was still trapped within the confines of the magical institution. And now, she has walked out of her medical prison and into a tiny flat pealed out of her own ideas of fairy tales.

There are four rooms, which is enough. The kitchen is never small nor generous and instead exists in a state of the in-between, but there are plenty of work surfaces, lots of storage and a large kitchen table that stands in the centre of the room; currently, the table is littered with boxes of her belongings. Parvati moved in three days ago, and now Lavender's parents are apparating in and out of the kitchen, depositing boxes of cutlery and clothes and makeup and memorabilia from a childhood that seems so long ago now that she might be squinting at it through the misty grey haze of a pensive. They'd toyed with the idea of moving Lavender's stuff into her flat before she had been discharged, but Lavender was reading a book about _psychological progression _and she had read that it is the transitory things which can help you to move on – attending the funerals, watching as your life is packed up and moved from one home to another. She had expected that watching the room fill up with the bits and pieces which cluttered up her life would make her feel more grounded, instead she still feels like this is some strange dream inspired by hallucinogenic potions for the pain.

She steps out of the kitchen and into her bedroom. The room is decorated in a way she typically associates with magic. Muggles, Lavender often thinks, are far more stylish and clean in decorating their buildings. Whilst Muggles favour crisp, clean colours in varying shades of neutral, magical dwellings are often lathered in rich, intense patterns: in Lavender's new bedroom, the wallpaper is a crimson so concentrated that it makes the room seem smaller (magic, however, makes the room much bigger so this roughly cancels out), the exposed wooden floor is covered by magnificently embroidered rug, the furniture is all crafted from mahogany and the candles burning in the brackets altogether give the impression that she has walked into a building from a different era. As is always the case, this archaic taste that magical folk seem to retain makes her smile slightly – it's comforting to know that, through all these wars and trials, they maintain their prerogative of not keeping up with the modern era.

Her room at home is a mark of her younger self. Her parents had always favoured lighter, airier decor, particularly when it came to their daughter's bedroom. It is painted in light purple colour that had been called _lavender nights _and had struck such a chord to her twelve year old mind that she had insisted upon it, it is girly and silly. A scattering of photographs in ornate silver frames, of Parvati and her and Hogwarts and her parents – these have been uprooted from their fluffy surroundings, seeming slightly too minimalistic and out of place as they now stand, propped up against the kettle and waiting from Lavender to rearrange them inside her new bedroom. She likes the contrast, though, between her old room and the new: this, more magical, less childish, a change of direction.

"Aren't you going to help?" Lavender's Dad asks, stepping into the bedroom and glancing around. His hand briefly rests on her shoulder, before the weight is gone and Lavender's whole arm feels too light and disconnected from him. "Should have known you wanted us here to get out of doing any of the work yourself."

Lavender smiles, following her Dad out of the room and making some light joke in response; Parvati chimes in, quipping about slave labour and House Elves, and they all skit round the edges of the kitchen table. Her parents have always liked Parvati.

"You should get yourself a Flat Elf, eh Lav?" Her Dad continues. "Saves you doing the washing up."

"It's just a simple little spell, Mr Brown."

"And yet Lavender's yet to manage it," He grins, "where does this box go, Lav? _Another _box of clothes?"

"Bedroom." Lavender says, frowning slightly as her mother _pops _back into the kitchen clutching her old trunk – she's caught between wanting to think about Hogwarts and not wanting to think about Hogwarts. The sudden reappearance of those seven years feels slightly jarring, as though she has missed the trick step and her foot falls straight through, and down, until she is caught and trapped and trying to heave herself out by will alone.

"I'll take that." Parvati said, glancing at Lavender and pulling the trunk into her arms. The door to her bedroom is still open, so she sees Parvati pushing the empty trunk under the bed and out of the way. Parvati has always been good to her – such a good friend, from the first day that they met.

"Nearly done." Lavender's Mum says, glancing round at the flat with a complicated expression. Her mother had wanted her to come home, had wept through a continual stream of tissues by Lavender's bedside until the third day after she'd regained consciousness, and now thought that the silly venture into adulthood was pointless and much too soon. They hadn't argued about it as much as disagreed: Lavender's Mum thought she was moving out simply to prove to herself that she was okay and that it would be much better just to move back home until she found her feet, whereas Lavender protested that she _was _fine and she wanted to do this. In the end, her mother had grudgingly accepted that Lavender remained headstrong and convinced of her opinion (just as she had when she'd joined that _Dumbledore's Army_) and that she had to let her daughter make her own mistakes.

"Cup of tea?" Parvati suggests, placing Lavender's photo frames face down on the countertop as she taps the kettle with her wand.

"Girl after my own heart," Lavender's Dad grins, "milk, two sugars for me."

He pops away again and for a second Lavender is struck by the lack of permanence – that one second someone can be there, and then they are not. It is the same with Voldemort: her whole life she's been told stories of you know who, her seven years of school clouded with rumours and suggestions of dark magic existing beyond her sphere of life, of deaths and curses and enchantments and wars. Lavender never saw his dead boy, but Parvati said that it was unremarkable and startling – she said that after years of his name sending a shiver of terror down her spine, seeing him crumpled and dead and so very human had been shocking and strange and mesmerising. Cathartic.

In ten minutes, he's back. He leans against the kitchen counter, sipping tea, and props up each of Lavender's photographs again, until the smiling faces in the silver frames peer out into this new room. They provoke a monologue of parental affection, too, and whilst they unfold clothes and hang them up with a flick of their wand Lavender is reacquainted with the story behind each and every moment frozen in their frames.

Parvati is helping, attaching the frames to the walls and nodding and laughing and smiling as her Dad continues to speak. Lavender, though, is quiet – ever since the first time she saw a muggle photograph, she finds them slightly disturbing: the thought of an image forever frozen at a particular moment, of stagnation and fixture. Of nothing able to change. Worse, though, the pictures remind her of the scars on her face and neck and side – never again will she look the way she does in those photos, because of the ugly cross stich that he bit into her neck. She doesn't want the photos on her walls but has no idea how to voice her concerns, so she simply doesn't. She stays silent.

"It's a nice place you've got here." Her Dad says when they've finished: her collection of books has been alphabetised in her bookshelf, her robes are colour coordinated, her make-up is shoved into one of the draws in the bathroom.

"Lavender picked it out," Parvati says, smiling over the third cup of tea of the day, "I love it."

Lavender loved it too when she peered over the tiny photograph in her hospital bed. Now she is full of the disconcerting feeling of having stepped into the photograph – she feels like she has shrunk into it, that if someone where to look through the brochure they might see a tiny version of herself leaning against the kitchen table and her photo frames attached to the walls.

Parvati and her parents start chatting about Parvati's new job (helping in her father's potion company) and Lavender can feel some strange emotion choking up the back of her throat. She puts it down to having just moved out of her parents' house, although she feels that, in a way, she moved out when she was eleven, and casts it aside as irrelevant. Then, when there is a lull in the talk, her Mother declares that they should probably get back home – both her parents hug her, then once again they disappear and, suddenly, Lavender's new life has officially started.


End file.
